"MR. DOOLEY."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

"MR. DOOLEY."

A FORGOTTEN HUMORIST DEATH Or HIS CREATOR.

(By CYRANO.)

"As Mr. Dooley says," you remark to someone much younger than yourself, and are pulled up by a question in the eye of the listener. He (or she), you realise instantly, has never heard of Mr. Dooley. Once more the passing of the years is borne in upon you. For once upon a time, "befo' de war," so to speak—-indeed, long "befo' de war"— Mr. Dooley was a power in the world. The sayings of the Irish-American saloon keeper, of Arcliey Road, Chicago, went all over the English-speaking parts of the world, to be read with mingled amusement and edification. "There's no betther place to see what's sroiii' 011 thin the Ar-rchey Road," said Mr. Dooley. "Whin th' ilicthric cars is hummin' down the sthreet an' th' blast goin' sthrong at th' mills, th' noise is that gr-reat ye can't think." But Mr. Dooley saw and thought, and his comments 011 affairs were the delight of America, Britain and the Dominions. Men waited for the next instalment of Finley Peter Dunne's philosopher just as men wait to-day for—who? Upon 1113' soul, I cannot think of anyone whose comments are so awaited. A. P. Herbert for a minority, but A.P.H. is not a man for the masses. There is 110 one like Mr. Dooley now. When Finley Peter Dunne, journalist, of Chicago, died the other day he had outlived his creation by many years. The last collection of Dooley sayings was published in 1910. In the 'Nineties. It is curious how humour goes out of currency. I have found difficulty in obtaining the miscellaneous works of Mark Twain. I have scoured a New Zealand city in vain for Artemus Ward, and I have found bookshops and libraries barren of Mr. Dooley. He used to be in scores of thousands of homes. Fortunately, I was able a few years ago to snatch a couple of volumes of his commentaries at a library dispersal. They do not contain some of the things I remember, but they serve to keep green his memory.

Politics, says this ruminating philosopher of the saloon, "is a mail's game; an' women, children and pro-hybitionists would do well to keep out 'iv it." You could, I think, safely date that remark by the experience to prohibitionists. Mr. Dooley wrote so long ago that he regards golf as largely a game of social status. "If ye bring yer wife f'r to see th' game, an' she has her name in th' paper, that counts ye wan." We are back in "the 'nineties, when Edward VII. was still Prince of Wales and the United States was fighting Spain, and the South African war was looming up, and the Duke of Marlborough was joined to Consuelo Vanderbilt in a marriage that was nullified a

few years ago by the Catholic Church 011 the ground that the bride was forced into it against her will. This AngloAmerican alliance does not make a pretty story. Mr. Dooley, who is rarely bitter, is fairly savage about the "Ganderbilk" wedding. It is in this commentary that he says: "Did ye iver read history, Jawn? Ye ought to. 'Tis betther than the 'Polis Gazette,' and near as tlirue." Mr. Dooley enjoys himself thoroughly over the war with Spain. Cervera was bottled up in Havana harbour and made his gallant dash to destruction; Dewey wiped out the Spanish fleet at Manila, "Teddy Rosenfelt" led his rough-riders in ecstasy over the Cuban hills; and Lieutenant Hobson was kissed by regiments of women. Mr. Dooley remarked that he knew now what Sherman had meant when he said war was hell. He meant "war was hell whin 'twis over." The passage reawakens memories of a far greater struggle. "I ain't lieerd any noise fr'm tli' fellows that wint into threnches an' plugged tli' villyanious Spanyard. Most iv them is too weak to kick. But tli' proud and fearless patlirites who restrained thimselves, an' didn't go to th' fr'ront, tli' la-ads that still-US,gled hard with their warlike tindencies. an' fin'lly downed thim an' stayed at home an' practised upon the t y pewriter, they're rasrin' an' tearin' and destroy in' their foes." The Judicial Temperament. Much of Mr. Dooley Is concerned with local politics, which were to many English readers even at the time, and now with the passing of time are interesting only to the student. This Etoes to explain why he has not been reprinted; only ail American could appreciate the remark: "As Shakespeare says. '01' men f'r tli' council, young men f'r tlie ward.'" Yet even here there is fun to be found, as in the story of the perfervid orator who campaigned against the silent but industrious candidate. The defeated one could not understand it; he had made three thousand speeches. "Well," said the other, "that was my majority." One would like a collection of the best of Mr. Dooley. It would include the famous remark: "I have the joodicial temperament; I hate wor-ruk." and the dictum about health that if doctors opened more windows and fewer patients it would be better for the world. It would include, too, the musings on Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. "Great Britain lias ixtinded her domain until the sun niver sets on it. No more do th' original owners iv th' sile, they bein' kept movin' by tli' polis." And then as if to even up the summary: "I've seen the shackles dropped fr'm tV slave, so's he cud be lynched in Ohio." And it. would certainly include Mr. Dooley on the Dreyfus case. "They Thrun Him Out." Mr. Dooley, Irish-American himself, and bounded in Archey Road by Germans, contrived to be highly diverting in European affairs. His picture of a French mob, "loaded up with obscenthe and cigaretts," crying out "a base" this, that and the other, is used to illustrate his contention that the French are not steady in their politics or their morals, which is"* where they "get done be th' hated British. Th' Fr-rinch buy a ton iv dinnvmite, spind five years in dhrillin' a hole through a steel dure, blow open th' safe, lose a leg or an

ar-rm, an' get away with th' liabilities iv the firm. Tli' English dress up f'r a Methodist preacher, stick a piece iv lead pipe in th' tails iv their coatt in case iv emergency, an' get all th' money there is in tli' line."

Mr. Dobley, However, reached his highest point in his sketches of the Dreyfus case. These wild burlesques may be bewildering to the reader to-day because lie has only the slightest knowledge of a case that itself was a nightmare, a witches' cauldron of injustice and hysteria. "Th' man on whom th' lies iv all tli wiirruld is cinthered" is Mr. Dooley's description of the "Cap." "Pat the Clam" flits about the proceedings, Mr. Dooley's inspired name for Colonel Paty du Clam. Mr. Dooley thought that Dreyfus didn't write the fatal document; he was the only man in France that didn't. Counsel for the defence objects to certain officers and politicians being sworn as witnesses. "They must be sworn," says the president. "How th' divvle can they perjure themselves if they ain't sworn?" Then there_ is the interposition of Emile Zola, with liis famous "J'Accuse" manifesto.

"Wfhen tli' judge come up on th' bench an' opined the coort, Zola was settin down below with th' lawyers. 'Let us pro-ceed,' says tli' impartial an' fair-minded judge, •to* tli' tlirile iv th' haynious monsther Cap Dliry-fuss,' he says. Up jumps Zola, an' savs he in Frincli: Mackuse,' be says, which is a hell of a mane thing to say to anny man. An' they thrun him out. 'Judge,' savs th' attorney f'r th' difinse, 'an' gintlemen iv tli' jury,' he says. 'Ye're a liar,' savs tli' judge. 'Cap, ye're guilty, an ye know it,' he says. 'Th' decision iv th' coort is that ve be put in a cage an' sint to the Divvle's own island: f'r tli' r-rest iv ye're life,' he says. 'Let us pro-ceed to hearm tli' tisti-mony,' he says. 'Call all tli' witnesses at wanst.' he says, 'an' lave thim have it out on th' flure,' he says. Be this time Zola has come back ; an' he jumps up, an', says he, 'Jackuse,' he says. An' they thrun him out."

One may imagine what Mr. Dooley would have made of the present European situation. My favourite passage, however, is something very different. I read it years ago, and have never been able to locate it. It runs something like this. When Mr. Dooley (talking to his crony Hennessey) thinks of the wickedness of the times—the decay of family life was written, mind you, over thirty vears ago), the decline in religion, the general corruption, etc., he comforts himself with one thought: "What's that?" asks Mr. Hennessey. "That it isn't so," says Mr. Dooley. A quotation to be used with caution, but a useful one to have by j 7 ou.